Sweet Home Alaska

by Carole Estby Dagg

  Terpsichore knew her father didn’t really mean for them to eat worms, so she tried to make a joke of it. “Maybe if you dipped them in flour and fried them? Or chopped them up and mixed them with bread crumbs and baked them like a meat loaf?”

  “That’s disgusting, Trip.” Cally gagged into her napkin.

  Polly pushed back her chair and dashed to the bathroom. It sounded like she made it there before upchucking.

  “Terpsichore Johnson! Now look what you’ve done,” her mother said. “You’d think at your age you’d have more sense than to say things that send your sisters into gastric spasms.”

  “It’s not my fault,” Terpsichore said. “Pop talked about eating worms first.”

  Terpsichore crawled under the table to pick up the forms her father had tossed. There were forms for applying for relief and forms to apply for the Alaska program. She’d promised Eileen she would do everything she could to make sure her family went to Alaska. She’d think of something, or her name wasn’t Terpsichore Johnson!

  CHAPTER 3

  Making Do and Doing Without

  ALL WINTER, THEY STILL TRIED TO KEEP UP APPEARANCES. Pop and Mother drank their foraged chicory coffee out of the fancy blue-and-white Royal Copenhagen teapot and cups Mother had brought with her to the marriage along with her piano and sterling silver place settings. There was no point trying to sell the silver; no one in Little Bear Lake had enough money to buy it. One by one, the mothers of every one of Terpsichore’s mother’s piano students called to cancel their children’s lessons, so the last bit of income was gone.

  The school was about the only thing still operating on a normal schedule, but it seemed like every week another family left Little Bear Lake to move in with relatives in other parts of the country or look for work as far away as California. Maybe they’d even have to close the school if most kids left town.

  The library was still open—but just on Tuesdays and Saturdays. On the way home from school one Tuesday, Terpsichore stopped by to see if Miss Thompson had any books saved for her under the desk.

  She should have suspected something was wrong when she saw that the snow on the steps had not been cleared. She pulled on the brass door handle, but the door didn’t budge. Then she read the hand-lettered notice taped to the inside of the glass:

  Change of Hours

  Due to budget cutbacks, the library will now be open only on Saturdays, from 10–4

  Miss Hanna Thompson, Librarian

  Cutting library hours again? Whose crazy idea was that? The library was one of the most popular places in town, especially after the mill closed. People couldn’t afford the movies or the roller-skating barn, but they could come to story hour and check out books for free. Even folks who didn’t read much huddled around the heat registers at the library. Terpsichore returned her books through the slot. The hollow clunk they made as they hit the bin inside was as hollow as her heart.

  She started back down the steps slowly, but then her cheeks grew hot and she started running and huffing like a mad bull. Cutting library hours to six hours a week was the last straw. Now Miss Thompson would probably have to move. Terpsichore flung open the kitchen door and shouted, “The library’s closed today!”

  The house was silent. Polly and Cally’s books had been dumped on the kitchen table, but Terpsichore didn’t hear anyone practicing.

  Then, from the parlor came their mournful voices. “Noooooo!”

  Terpsichore dropped her books beside her sisters’ and dashed to the parlor.

  With one trembling finger, Cally outlined the large rectangle on the wallpaper where the colors of the pink cabbage roses hadn’t faded. The large rectangle that marked the space where the piano used to be.

  Mother came out from the bedroom. Her eyelids were red and the tip of her nose was pink. “It was the sensible thing to do, girls,” she said. “After all, I don’t have pupils anymore.”

  Terpsichore tried again to tell them about the library, but they had no room in their hearts for any sadness but their own.

  When Pop came home from chopping stumps for firewood, Cally and Polly each grabbed a hand and dragged him to the parlor.

  “I didn’t think anyone had money to buy a piano,” he said.

  “I didn’t actually sell it,” Mother said. “I traded it to Mr. Nostrand for a hundred twenty-five dollar credit at the general store. I had to do it soon. Mrs. Nostrand already has the Smiths’ Queen Anne dining table and the Nybergs’ secretary desk, and pretty soon their house will be so overflowing with bartered goods they won’t be willing to trade anymore.”

  Pop wrapped Mother in his arms. “I never would have asked you to give it up.”

  “I saved the music books,” she said, pulling away and trying to smile. “When times are better we can always get a new piano.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Fireside Chat

  FOR THE REST OF WINTER, AND ON INTO SPRING, THE Johnsons ate food made from the flour and oats they bought with the piano credit at the store, eggs from their three remaining hens, an occasional rabbit, and sprigs of greens from Mother’s windowsill garden. Two of the teachers at Terpsichore’s school left town, so all the remaining fourth-, fifth-, and sixth-grade children met together in one classroom. On April 28, they all had the same assignment: listen to President Roosevelt on the radio.

  • • •

  Terpsichore was stretched out on her stomach in front of the radio console. Outside the front room window, the sky was black. Inside, the only light came from the fireplace, the pool of lamplight by her mother’s mending chair, and the faint glow of the radio dial.

  The volume had been low because the twins were already in bed, but at 8:59 P.M., Pop rose from his chair and leaned over Terpsichore to turn it up just in time for the words, “And next, the President of the United States, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with his seventh Fireside Chat.”

  Terpsichore yawned. If it hadn’t been a school assignment to listen to the speech, she’d be in bed by now. Pop dragged his chair closer to the radio and sat leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

  As soon as Roosevelt opened with “My friends,” Terpsichore pressed the right side of her face against the nubby cloth over the speakers. Feeling the vibration of the President’s voice against her ear, she could imagine that she really was his friend, and that he was talking directly to her.

  “Americans as a whole are feeling a lot better—a lot more cheerful than for many, many years,” President Roosevelt said.

  Pop snorted. “He obviously hasn’t visited Little Bear Lake.”

  “. . . the great work program just enacted by the Congress. Its first objective is to put men and women now on the relief rolls to work . . .”

  Terpsichore glanced up at her father. His mouth and eyes were scrunched up small, probably in anger over programs that only helped people on relief. Terpsichore scrunched her mouth up small too, because Pop’s prideful refusal to go on relief had made her miss her chance to join Eileen in Alaska. Just as Eileen had predicted, her family had been chosen to go to Alaska. Now they were boxing up everything they owned.

  When the President started talking about banks and utilities, her attention wandered. Her feet began swinging back and forth, thunking the floor rhythmically like the slow beat of a metronome. She thought about Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. Everyone loved Mrs. Roosevelt because she seemed to care about ordinary people. Maybe Terpsichore should write a letter to her and ask her to explain to her husband that even people who were too proud to go on relief needed jobs too.

  “Terp-sick-oh-ree, stop!” Her mother’s scolding whisper cut through Terpsichore’s thoughts.

  Terpsichore froze her feet in mid-arc, sighed, and sat up to lean against the radio speakers. She looked at the clock. With only five minutes to the end of the speech he would be getting to the most important parts. She needed to pay close attention and take notes for
school tomorrow.

  “I, therefore, hope you will watch the work in every corner of this Nation. Feel free to criticize. Tell me of instances where work can be done better . . .”

  Now that President Roosevelt was talking again about things she understood, she wrote as fast as she could.

  “We have in the darkest moment of our national trials retained our faith in our own ability to master our destiny. Fear is vanishing and confidence is growing on every side . . .”

  The radio speaker warmed her back and filled her with faith and confidence. She would do her best to be cheerful. She would have confidence that President Roosevelt’s plans would work, but she would also have faith in herself, that she could master her own destiny.

  She stretched her eyelids open, trying to make them sparkle with faith, optimism, and cheer. If President Roosevelt could see her now he might say, “Now, there’s a fine example of the confidence I’m looking for!”

  Pop stood and leaned over Terpsichore to switch off the radio. Turning toward Mother, he said, “I don’t want a make-work job. I heard about a program started last year for homesteads—some right next door in Minnesota. We’ll have to move somewhere when they close the school, so why not Minnesota? It’s closer than Alaska.”

  Mother threw the sock she was darning into her mending basket. “Well,” she said, “as long as we have to move somewhere, how about New York City? Surely they won’t close the schools there. Cally and Polly’s plan to go on Major Bowes Amateur Hour makes as much sense as homesteading in Minnesota. You should hear how they talk about all the money they’d make as the twin piano prodigies and vocalists.” Mother forced a laugh to show she didn’t take the twins’ plan seriously.

  Pop shook his head. “Good thing you’re not encouraging that suggestion. Have you read about the hundreds of people who apply for every show? And some of the ones who get that far are gonged right off the stage.” He shook his head at the folly.

  Terpsichore imagined Major Bowes swinging a padded hammer and hitting a gong as big as the top of a bass drum. But of course, no one could be so hard-hearted toward the twins. Their curls bobbed in time to the music as they played their piano duets. Their dimples were so cute as they sang.

  “You’re right, of course, Harald,” Mother said. She stood so she could look Pop in the eye. She lifted her chin. “We don’t have to homestead in Minnesota or move to New York.” She pulled one of Pop’s hands from his pocket and held it in both of her own. “All we have to do is write to my mother. She’ll sell something for our train fare down to Madison.” Her coaxing voice was gentle, musical. She never took her eyes from Pop’s.

  The skin around Pop’s mouth tightened. “Clio, you know how I feel about taking charity from your mother.”

  Terpsichore’s own throat ached in sympathy with the misery in Pop’s voice. Grandmother VanHagen would make them wear their Sunday clothes all day. Her neighbors were the kind of people who would not welcome children running and shouting outdoors. Grandmother was allergic to cats, so Tigger would have to sleep outside. Terpsichore liked Grandmother, but she didn’t like the way she’d have to live if they moved in with her.

  Mother seemed to remember she had an audience besides Pop. She sat on the floor and gathered Terpsichore into a hug. “I don’t know what we’re going to do if your father refuses the only reasonable option, moving back with your grandmother.” She turned back to Pop. “Besides, it wouldn’t be charity. You could replace her gardener and her chauffeur. And I could find piano students in a big city and contribute that way.”

  Mother squeezed Terpsichore’s shoulder, stood with a sigh, and crossed from darkness back into the light by her mending chair.

  • • •

  Terpsichore was in bed, but she could not sleep. She didn’t want to move to Grandmother’s house, or New York City, or Minnesota. She wanted to move to Alaska with Eileen. President Roosevelt wanted her to be optimistic. If Eileen was going to Alaska, she would find a way to go too.

  Pop didn’t want charity, but if the people in the Alaska project had to pay back the money they were loaned for a new start, that wasn’t charity, was it? And if they were on relief only long enough to get into the Alaska project, that wouldn’t count as charity either, would it?

  She slipped out of bed and wiggled her fingers under the mattress to pull out the forms for going on relief and applying for the Alaska project that Pop had tossed away. She had heard Pop saying that out of over two hundred families who had been chosen to go north, at least one would back out and another family would be chosen at the last minute. Maybe that last-minute family would be the Johnsons if she turned in all the paperwork. If Eileen’s family went to Alaska, her family would go too.

  CHAPTER 5

  Alaska Bound

  THE NEXT MORNING, TERPSICHORE KNOCKED ON EILEEN’S front door and when nobody answered, she cracked open the door. “Hello,” she called.

  Eileen’s mother looked up from scrubbing the floor around the woodstove. “Eileen’s up there,” she said, nodding toward the back of the house.

  “Up there” was up a ladder to the attic. Eileen was the only one who had her own cot. Her seven brothers all piled into the two other cots or blankets on the floor. They were in the barn helping their father, so for once Terpsichore and Eileen had some space to themselves.

  Terpsichore sat on the floor as she watched Eileen sort through her belongings. There wasn’t much to pack. Eileen hugged Dolly, the rag doll her grandmother had made for her when she was four. Her Gran had embroidered bright green eyes on the face, and captured Eileen’s lopsided smile in red thread. She’d dotted her face with rust-colored freckles and plaited its red yarn hair, just like Eileen.

  “My mother said I can only take what fits in this apple crate,” Eileen said as she held her doll out to Terpsichore.

  “But your Gran made her for you—she looks like you.”

  Eileen grinned her lopsided grin. “That’s the point,” she said. “She’ll remind you of me.”

  “But if my family goes too, I won’t need the doll to remind me of you—I’ll have the real you! I haven’t given up yet on our pledge.” She handed Dolly back to Eileen and leaned in to whisper. “And guess what? I turned in the forms to go to Alaska that Pop threw away.”

  “You didn’t!” Eileen dropped her doll to hug Terpsichore. Then her smile faded. “It was clever of you to try, but isn’t it too late?” Eileen asked.

  “It’s not too late until the boat sails,” Terpsichore said. “If some family backs out, our application will be at the top of the pile. We’ll be together yet!” Terpsichore held out a crooked little finger for another pinky swear.

  • • •

  A few days before Eileen’s family was going to leave, Cally and Polly burst through the gate and nearly knocked Terpsichore and her father into the pile of mucky henhouse scrapings they were raking into the soil. “Pop! Trip! Mrs. Reilly is expecting!”

  “Expecting?” Pop said as he regained his balance.

  “You know,” Cally said, as she outlined a rounded tummy, “expecting!”

  “Frankie and Jimmy Reilly said they’re not going to Alaska,” Polly added. “Their mother told them she would never have baby number nine living in a tent in the wilderness!”

  Pop shook his head. “I knew Mrs. Reilly didn’t want to go.” He tapped the loose dirt from his hoe and leaned it up against the wall by the kitchen door.

  “I suppose that is good news,” Terpsichore said as they all entered the kitchen. “That means Eileen doesn’t have to go! We can still be together here in Little Bear Lake.”

  Mother looked up from a bowlful of batter she was dishing into a muffin tin. “I don’t blame Mrs. Reilly for not wanting to go.”

  Pop said, “I wonder if another family will get to take their place.”

  No one noticed the panic on Terpsichore’s face. What i
f they got picked now! This was not working out the way she had planned. She had put in their application so they could go to Alaska with Eileen’s family, not take their place.

  Mother jumped in. “Don’t talk nonsense, Mr. Johnson. No family could get ready to go in two days. It takes weeks to decide what to take, and to visit relatives they might never see again . . .”

  “Mother’s right,” Terpsichore said. “No one could be ready so soon.”

  But Pop wasn’t listening. He left the door open, swinging in his wake as he strode—almost running—toward the courthouse.

  Mother slammed the door.

  At four o’clock, her father had not returned. Her mother paced the floor, clutching Matthew to her chest. Terpsichore paced the floor too.

  At four-thirty, Pop burst through the door, catching his breath. “We have to move fast, or the caseworker will find another family to go! Everybody scrub up; we’re going to the social service office so the doctor can certify our health.”

  Mother’s eyes were wide and glazed, like the eyes of a deer in the oncoming headlights of a two-ton truck. “What?”

  “I’ve signed the paperwork,” Pop said. “We have just a few minutes before the office closes.” He shooed Terpsichore and her sisters toward the bathroom.

  As Terpsichore elbowed her way between Cally and Polly to brush her teeth at the sink, she heard her mother’s voice. “What did you sign?”

  “Our application for the Alaska program, of course! We’re going to Palmer, Alaska!”

  “Oh, no, we’re not,” said Mother. “Besides, I thought we didn’t qualify.”

  “I guess someone agreed with me that we’re just the kind of people Alaska needs.” Pop turned to Terpsichore, who was hovering by the bathroom door. He winked. Did he guess what she had done?

  Terpsichore’s face felt feverish and her heart fluttered like the wings of a trapped bird. Yes, she had turned in the forms, but she hadn’t done it just for Pop, she had done it for Eileen, and now Eileen wasn’t going to Alaska. She wanted a giant eraser that could wipe out her trip to the welfare office with Pop’s paperwork.